Middlesex

by

Jeffrey Eugenides

Zora is a beautiful intersex person whom Cal meets in San Francisco. He lives in Zora’s house and works with her at a sex club called Sixty-Niners. Zora is proud of being intersex, and doesn’t want to identify as a woman even though she physically passes as a cis woman. She passes on her knowledge and pride about being intersex to Cal. Zora only dates lesbians, is a heavy drinker, and is writing a book about intersex people called The Sacred Hermaphrodite.

Zora Quotes in Middlesex

The Middlesex quotes below are all either spoken by Zora or refer to Zora. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Rebirth vs. Continuity Theme Icon
).
Book 4: Hermaphroditus Quotes

There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That’s why everybody’s always searching for their other half. Except for us. We’ve got both halves already.

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Cal/lie Stephanides
Page Number: 489
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Middlesex LitChart as a printable PDF.
Middlesex PDF

Zora Quotes in Middlesex

The Middlesex quotes below are all either spoken by Zora or refer to Zora. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Rebirth vs. Continuity Theme Icon
).
Book 4: Hermaphroditus Quotes

There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That’s why everybody’s always searching for their other half. Except for us. We’ve got both halves already.

Related Characters: Zora (speaker), Cal/lie Stephanides
Page Number: 489
Explanation and Analysis: